Sandhill Cranes

Last Friday a group of friends and I went to Kearney Nebraska to take pictures of the Sandhill Cranes. We piled in the car at 3:30 in the morning for the 2 hour trip. Though we should have all taken naps on the way down none of us could sleep because of the anticipation of the day that was to come. We arrived at where we were going to take our morning pictures at about 5:30. It was still dark out and we could hear the cranes all around us.

Regretfully there were not as many cranes on the Platte compared to my previous years here. The good news was that the birds were more active this year. They danced and played with corn stalks for us all morning. This is my favorite time to photograph them because when they are dancing it really brings out their personality. As the day moved into the afternoon the birds became really jumpy. So much so that they would fly off the moment they saw our car. We decided that this would be the best time to take a lunch break. After we filled our stomachs with some good barbecue we jumped back into the car for 6 more hours of shooting.

This day I tried out a 400mm 2.8 L Series lens with a 2.0 teleconverter. This gave me on my 20D about a 1200mm lens. The lens was considerably bigger and heavier than my 100-400mm L Series that I primarily use. So much so that I had to use a tripod for ever shot. Even though it was more cumbersome and time consuming to use I loved the lens. It offered superior optics and it was really really fast. If you ever get a chance to try out this lens I would recommend you jump on it, you will not regret it.

Here are a few shots from the day. I will be posting some more later this week so stay tuned.

This weekend a friend and I went looking for some new camera bags. We were looking for bags that would be suitable for backpacking and camping. Personally I prefer the traditional shoulder bag for backpacking. This is for several reasons. First this frees my back for caring my other supplies such as camping gear. Secondly it provides for easy access to my equipment. And finally it provides for arm support, which comes in handy when you are caring a large zoom lens on a all day hike.

While we were looking we started talking about backpacking in the Badlands of South Dakota. This is one of my favorite places to photograph. It offers a variety of landscape types including deserts and prairies. Along with the varied landscapes there is a plethora of animal species in this region. I have seen everything from foxes and coyotes to buffalo and porcupines here. Surprisingly to my dismay, I have not found any rattle snakes yet. Maybe this will be the year I get some shots off of a rattler. There is nothing I love more than to park my car off in this remote region and backpacking for several days. Over the years I have taken thousands of images in these hills and prairies here are a few for your viewing pleasure. These were taken with a Canon 10D, 20D and 5D bodies.

Well having had some down time lately, I decided to start going through my image banks to see if there were any hidden images that were forgotten about. In doing so I took a different perspective with looking at the images. Previously I have been primarily a B&W landscape photographer. With this mindset I ignored the color qualities of my images and basically looked for images that held potential for a B&W composition. So with going through my old work again I switched my mindset and started looking for pieces that would make nice color images. This brought about about a great moment of discovery for me. Forcing myself to look at my images in a different way made me notice images that I would have otherwise neglected. Here are a few of those images.

All of these pictures were taken with a 5D and Canon 17-40mm lens. There were no filters used, so the color you see are a good representation of what I saw while taking the pictures. The only alterations to the images were basic adjustments done during RAW conversion in CS3.

I am currently working with a mission team from Thanksgiving! Lutheran Church in Bellevue to purchase and ship drilling equipment to Southern Sudan. Our hopes are to aid the people in this region in drilling wells so they have a constant supply of safe drinking water. The theme of our mission is "Living Water". Simply put we are trying to bring living water to these people in Sudan who vitally need it. My role in the mission group is to provide graphic, video and photography support.


Recently I have been tasked to design a label to be placed on 5 gallon water jugs for collection of donations. Going off this theme of Living Water I had the idea of water drops falling into a pool of water for the back ground of the image. I had a lot of fun with this one (though I kind of made a mess with the water). Here are a few of the images I came up with. The bottom image is the design I came up with for the water jug. All images were taken with a Canon 5D, 100mm 2.8 Canon macro lens and two strobe lights (though I utilized the model lights not the strobes).

Over the weekend a buddy and I went out to take some pictures of deer. I brought him to a spot where I have always had good luck. We walked around for about an hour and did not see anything. We saw plenty of tracks but no deer. After a while we ran into a man walking his dog. He told us that right over the next hill was about thirty deer. We hurried our gear over to where the man pointed and there were indeed plenty of deer. Our count however was over fifty. Below is an image of a small cluster of dear centered around a tree. This is just a small portion of the deer, a majority of them were spread out on the sides of the frame. I also included a black and white landscape I took that day. All images were taken with a Canon 5D and a 100-400 mm Canon L Series lens.

Over the last week my boys and I have been doing a little experimenting with table top macro photography. We tried several different techniques. The kids had a lot of fun with our creations. They referred to our experiments as making planets and galaxies. I thought it was awesome to see their faces light up when they saw the pictures I came up with. Here our a few of our creations.

Well cabin fever is setting in and I am finding myself daydreaming about being out in the field taking pictures. Specifically I am dreaming about Sandhill Cranes. These magnificent birds will be coming to Kearney, Nebraska in a little over a month. I go here a few days every year to get images of the cranes. Last year I got some of my best photographs of the them. But photography is like a drug and when you get a solid image it just makes you want to take more. That is where I am at right now siting at my desk just itching to get my photography fix filled. Here are a few images of the cranes from last year. These images were all taken within a two hour interval. The last picture is my favorite. I had been trying for three years to get a solid image of a crane dancing and playing with corn stalks and I finally nailed one last year. I would love to hear your feedback on these images so let me know what you think.